We need less Chemo and Surgery and more "Voom."

[Dayuhan]

As to the communists having the moral high ground during the cold war, the hard fact is that all of the larger, more powerful coutries were competing for influence/control over those weaker countries deemed as important to the larger competition between the Soviet-Sino block and the West. No clean hands.

Of course everybody was competing for influence, and of course nobody had clean hands. The communists simply read the direction of events earlier and more pragmatically, and were openly building bridges with nationalist and anti-colonial movements well before WW2. That left the Eurocentric US responding to their move and occupying the ground of defending colonial regimes and post-colonial dictators, a morally indefensible position for the self-styled land of the free. I didn't say the Communists were more moral, I said they recognized the more morally and historically defensible position earlier and moved to fill it, and the US played into their hands by trying to stand against the obvious tide of history. From this they gained a meaningful propaganda advantage in the developing world, and the US gained a long succession of liabilities that still hang over us.

The communists did, however have an advantage in those places where the West was working to sustain systems born of the the very colonialism that nationalist movements were seeking to be free of. These people did not of necessity want to be communists, just like Americans didn't want to be French, and just like most Muslim populaces today don't want to be part of some Islamist Caliphate. But one takes what help one can find, and then worry about the consequences later.

The difference, of course, is that while the populaces in the countries involved may not have considered themselves "communist", many of the insurgent movements the Communists supported actually did identify themselves as Communist and were actually led by declared Communists. Those that won often did set up recognizably Communist governments. I can't think of a single indigenous insurgency (one not primarily directed at an occupying foreign power) in the Muslim world that openly declares itself a part of AQ or is led by AQ members. The victorious insurgencies of the Arab Spring show no signs of significant AQ influence. I see no evidence at all to suggest that indigenous insurgencies in the Muslim world have been successfully leveraged by AQ.

The greater Middle East has been heavily manipulated by the Ottomans, the Europeans and the US for centuries. Now those populaces are largely free of those external systems and at the same time more connected and empowered by modern information technologies than ever before. Those are indisputable facts.

AQ seeks to exploit this situation for their own interests and goals. They do not cause insurgency, but they do seek to leverage the conditions of insurgency that are so prevalent among the people of that region.

You keep repeating this, like a mantra, as if repetition were a supporting argument. It's not.

Yes, AQ seeks to leverage conditions of insurgency. My point is that this effort has generally failed. What AQ has successfully leveraged is a broad resentment in the Muslim world toward perceived aggression and injustice on the part of the West generically, and specific anger at specific occupations of Muslim territory. That narrative has worked for them. Their efforts to generate or hijack indigenous insurgencies have been resounding failures.

The governments cling to how they want to govern, while populaces seek evolution. When denied evolution these things often turn to revolution. It is human nature.

Yes, but you're not demonstrating any connection between this phenomenon and AQ. Again, it's not enough to say it is so. You have to support that claim with evidence and reasoning.

The communists did not cause the insurgencies of the 50s and 60s, but they did seed to exploit that energy to extend their reach and influence. Similar today with AQ. That does not make me stuck in the Cold War. But from what you write, I don't think you understand the Cold War or the current disruptions very well.

I don't think you're reading what I'm writing. I never said communists or communism caused those insurgencies, I said they recognized those insurgent situations early and moved effectively to exploit them. They were in many cases quite successful. AQ has not had similar success. Anyone here can name a long list of Cold War insurgencies that openly identified themselves as Communist. Can you name even one indigenous insurgency (again, one directed at a local government, not a foreign occupier) that openly identifies with AQ or where AQ has significant influence?

These are disruptions rooted in people wanting change, not wars caused by outside forces pushing some controlling ideology. Governments that create and nurture legal means for their people to shape such evolution may well lose the control they have held with in some particular family or segment of the society, but they gain a natural stability that immunizes the people they serve from these external sources of influence and exploitation.

The claim that AQ and its supporters seek primarily to alter relationships between Muslim governments and those they govern, rather than relationships between the Muslim ummah and the world around it, is another mantra. Again, this can't just be stated, it has to be supported with evidence and reasoning.

You don't have to agree with that assessment. Your mind is made up. I post it here for other members of the small wars community who are more open minded and appreciate that much of what is captured in Western COIN studies, doctrine, etc is heavily biased.

I think your mind is also made up, and I post for the same reason.

I agree that much of what is enshrined in COIN doctrine is heavily biased and based on invalid assumptions, but I don't see any reason why COIN doctrine has to be part of the fight against AQ. Other than the ones we've created by occupation and "nation-building", there's not an insurgency on the planet that requires more than a small FID presence from us. We don't need to "do COIN", if we stop creating insurgencies we won't have to fight them on any significant scale. If we stop giving our enemy what they thrive on - occupations of Muslim lands - they'll be forced to fall back on trying to exploit indigenous insurgencies, a position that has not succeeded for them and is not likely to.

Again, your position would be more credible and comprehensible if you would identify specific policies toward specific countries (ideally other than Iraq and Afghanistan, where we all know we %$#@ed uo) that you think have failed, and suggest specific policies that you think would improve matters. That's particularly relevant in the Arad heartland: what specifically would you have us do with regard to, say, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States?